🗞 What's New: This Google Chrome update opens new doors

Thousands of Chrome extensions are about to disappear:

• This is great news for founders. Find an extension that's about to expire, and create a version of it in Manifest v3.
• When designing an effective landing page, state your unique selling proposition (USP) in this order: What, how, why.
• From travel influencer to indie hacker. Timo Nikolai and Josef Buettgen came up with an idea, built an MVP, and launched in 2 weeks.

Want your product seen by nearly 100,000 founders and businesses? Sponsor an issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter. Choose between 3 affordable tiers that can fit almost any budget.

from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

There are 132K+ extensions available for Google Chrome. Recently, Google has started showing this message in its Chrome Extension Store:

Read on to learn why this is great news if you're a bootstrapped founder!

Why is Google displaying this message?

On July 10th, Google published a blog post entitled: "What's happening in Chrome extensions?"

In this post, the company warned users that Manifest Version 2 extensions will soon go away.

Think of an extension manifest like an operating system version. "Manifest v2" extensions were like "Windows 10," and Google now wants everyone to switch to "Windows 11."

Google started phasing out Manifest v2 extensions back in 2022. This is the final countdown before people have to upgrade.

Many extensions will be removed by the end of 2024

I've been browsing through the Chrome Web Store, and found that the following message appears on many extensions for almost every keyword that I type:

These aren't just obscure extensions with a few users; many have tens of thousands of users.

The developers of these extensions have likely ignored two years worth of Google's emails urging them to upgrade to Manifest v3. They also spent weeks ignoring this message on their extension page. It's safe to say that these extensions will be kicked out of the Web Store by the end of 2024.

The opportunity for bootstrapped founders

Find a popular extension that's about to expire, and create a version of that extension in Manifest v3.

Chrome extensions are open source by default, which means you don't have to start from scratch; you can easy inspect the extension's source code.

Additionally, you can use an AI tool, like Claude or ChatGPT, to help you create a v3 version of the extension. Feed the source code, and ask for a refactor. I've found that Claude is particularly good at creating boilerplates, and can code the logic and interface for any Chrome extension, with minimal errors.

Once you create the extension and do some basic promotion, Google will likely start recommending it under the "Try one of these alternatives" section for V2 extensions:

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trendy Software Ideas for more.

from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

🧵 Threads gains growth momentum as it reaches 200M users.

🤖 Video game actors are officially on strike over AI.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

🏛️ Google loses a massive antitrust case over Search, and plans to appeal the ruling.

🧠 The psychology of shortform content.

🤗 Here's how a changing Starbucks hopes to retain customers.

Check out Trendy Software Ideas to discover more software ideas inspired by recent news.

by Vadim Hrytsenko

I'm a product designer with seven years of experience. Over the years, I've developed, tested, and sold numerous landing pages and websites.

Here are the fundamental rules for designing the perfect landing page to increase conversion and user satisfaction!

The first section is like a first date

Your task is to convey your product's main idea to the user, and build trust. In the headline, state your unique selling proposition (USP) in this order: What, how, why.

Build trust by showing the best reviews or successful case studies. It might seem obvious, but make sure to also include a prominent CTA. Make it easily accessible and visually noticeable.

Pro tip: Professional visual design adds credibility to your site. Interactive animations help create a positive user experience.

Demo video

Create a short demo video of your product or service. Video content works better than text.

Prepare a short (up to one minute) video where you explain who your product is for, and how it works. Even if you just record yourself explaining the benefits of your product, it will be effective. Why? Because people buy from people.

Social proof

Your landing page should include reviews. To get the most out of them, follow these guidelines:

• Never use fake reviews!

• Include links to the authors of the reviews so it's easy to verify that they are real people.

• As I mentioned, videos work better than text. Try to publish video reviews, as these will increase trust and conversion rates.

• Add results to the reviews. For example, show how you increased sales for a customer.

• Don't forget to add logos of the companies you've worked with.

Give users a way to contact you quickly

Feedback forms are good, but live chat or messaging works better. Your site visitors expect a response from a human, not a bot, so give them the option to contact you through chat or social media.

Chatting with a potential lead narrows the sales funnel.

Test and analyze

Launching your site is just the beginning! Invest in quality analytics tools, watch how users behave on your site, and study the statistics.

Talk to your users and observe them. This will provide many insights for improving your site!

If you want to get a high-converting design, check out my agency!

Discuss this story.

from the Marketing Examples newsletter

Show the transformation. "A moment" becomes "something real."

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

by Katie Hignett

Travel influencer Timo Nikolai decided to automate simple sales tasks with voice AI. Just two weeks later, he partnered with software developer Josef Buettgen to launch SetterAI.

Starting out

I started my first indie hacking project after leaving an e-commerce startup with lots of employees and overhead.

It's a super simple WhatsApp AI chatbot called Jinni AI. It went viral on TikTok, and got 100K users in the first month. Now, it has 400K.

For my next SaaS, I wanted more of a challenge. I partnered with Josef, a self-taught coder who decided to go full-time on indie hacking in late 2022.

Voice AI technology

I'd worked as an appointment setter, calling sales leads and scheduling appointments. After coming across voice AI, I thought that we could automate the process.

I'd met Josef at my co-working space, and I knew he was a talented programmer. We started working on SetterAI in February 2024. Two weeks later, we had an MVP and our first paying customer.

I validated the idea through a landing page to get a sense of SEO traffic for this keyword. I added a waitlist button, a fake product demo video, and a "Book a Demo" button.

I took all those calls to see what people actually wanted. We asked potential customers for a $500 refundable deposit to access the product as soon as it dropped. Waitlists and demos are nice, but when someone swipes a credit card, you know there's something behind the idea.

So far, SetterAI has made ~21K calls!

Learning and growth

In university, I was an Instagram travel influencer. Still am, maybe. I knew that if we could get attention on social media, we could convert those eyeballs into dollars.

We started a YouTube channel for SetterAI immediately, and a lot of our leads have come from there.

Our biggest customer sells vacation homes online. He has an established lead generation machine, getting phone numbers and emails through Meta ads.

SetterAI works best for people generating leads like this: People that have 5K-10K+ leads coming in, but don't have the capacity to set up a call center. The AI can make thousands of calls simultaneously in different languages.

We now have a subscription model with a setup fee. The product works better for them this way, and we can charge much more. After that, customers buy call credits that expire at the end of the month.

We're thinking of including maintenance contracts so we can charge a little bit more whenever someone needs help.

Advice for indie hackers

Your time is precious, so focus on the most important tasks. Validate, put up a landing page, and get waitlists and demo calls before you even start building.

Start marketing right away. So many people build for months before collecting a single payment. That's nuts. You could have made a thousand iterations in that time!

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Darko, Vadim Hrytsenko, Harry Dry, and Katie Hignett for contributing posts. —Channing